In this week’s Thriving Dentist Show, Gary Takacs shares about a real game-breaking strategy to implement in your practice – a book club for your team members.
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Today’s world is changing at an increasing pace, and we need to embrace the spirit of life long learning to become better tomorrow than we are today. In your practice, you might have team members who are not interested in self-learning or increasing their knowledge by reading and doing research.
One of the benefits of having a book club is to help in lifelong learning, but there are other benefits too and many different ways to have a book club. There is “no one size fits all” approach to this. You need to ensure that you don’t make things too difficult for your team members to participate in by making it difficult for them to have a work-life balance.
One of the ways that Gary recommends is to hand out reading assignments to team members in the form of a ”Working Lunch.” This is a method that’s highly motivating for your team members because they are getting paid to be in the book club and to do the assignments in it. Yet, remember the reason why you have a book club is not to entertain your team members but to apply new information to your practice.
In this episode, you can learn more about;
- How you can motivate your team to embrace self-learning!
- How a Book Club acts as a support system to embrace learning and improving knowledge
- Recommended books to start with your team when you start a book club in your practice!
Listen to the episode now!
Resources
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Time Stamps
- 00:00:24 – Introduction
- 00:00:50 – Announcement 1
- 00:04:04 – About book club at LifeSmiles
- 00:05:39 – Benefit of having a book club
- 00:06:40 – Types of books you can get today.
- 00:07:52 – Reasons why Gary likes physical books and audible books?
- 00:08:44 – How to avoid making it difficult for team members to participate in Book Club?
- 00:09:34 – What is a working lunch?
- 00:11:06 – What happens when you don’t implement what you learned from the book club you’re in?
- 00:11:40 – What is the goal of having a book club?
- 00:12:07 – Gary’s experience with one of his clients.
- 00:14:48 – How do book clubs bring a common experience among the team?
- 00:16:56 – The ideal number of books Gary recommends to start a book club.
Books Recommended by Gary Takacs
- 00:19:11 – 1st book
- 00:21:38 – 2nd book
- 00:23:53 – 3rd book
- 00:25:23 – 4th book
- 00:27:37 – 5th book
- 00:28:11 – 6th book
Q&A Segment
- 00:30:24 – Question 1 – Gary, I have attended one of your lectures and have heard you speak about the concept of Book Club, and I’d like to do this in my practice. However, I can’t seem to get my team members very excited about doing the Book Club. Can you give me some ideas to get my team on board?
- 00:33:24 – Question 2 – I think one of the most important parts of Book Club is deciding what ideas we will apply in our office, but we seem to have trouble following through with implementation. Any ideas?
- 00:34:34 – What is the SMART goals concept?
- 00:37:18 – Question 3 – I anticipate some of my team members being engaged with Book Club and others not really engaged. Can you suggest how to increase engagement from team members who are often very quiet during team meetings?
- 00:41:36 – Question 4 – I realize that Book Club is a bit of a stretch for some of my team members, and it will require some of their own time to complete the reading assignments. Do you think it would be a good idea to provide a financial incentive for each team member upon completion of each book as I have a total of 7 team members?
Gary Takacs
Gary became a successful practice owner by purchasing a fixer-upper practice and developing it into a world-class dental practice. He is passionate about sharing his hard-earned insights and experiences with dental practices across the globe. As a dental practice coach, Gary provides guidance for dental professionals on how to create a healthier practice style that lets them deliver excellent patient care while reducing depending on insurance.
More importantly, Gary’s insights are not just based on theory – as a co-owner of a dental practice, he has first-hand experience in making this transformation from a high-volume and low-fee insurance model to a fee-for-service approach that is more sustainable and promotes a patient-centric and financially healthy dental practice, and he is dedicated to sharing this knowledge with other dental practitioners via the popular Thriving Dentist Show!